Film Thoughts: Avengers Doomsday Teasers and Plot Theory
Over the last month, a series of four teasers for Avengers Doomsday were released before every showing of Avatar Fire and Ash (Note: Some of the screenings had a chance they didn't even have the teaser). Each teaser was released one by one over the four weeks of the movie's premier. I, like most people, didn't go out to watch the Avatar movie and instead waited for the teasers to go online. I don't care that much about Cameron's Avatar films, especially since I barely remember the first movie in the first place and the sequel just came in too late for me to care enough about it. Heck, I'm still dumbfounded by the fact that there's an Avatar-themed land in Disney's Animal Kingdom over in Disney World. If you like Cameron's Avatar films, that's great and don't let me ruin it for you, it's just I don't particularly have interest in that franchise for me to watch those films four times, let alone one time.
Quick tangent aside, I just want to talk about each teaser and what they all have to say about Doomsday coming out in December given how the Russos stated that each teaser was its "own story" that leads into Doomsday.
The first teaser revealed the return of Chris Evans reprising his role as Steve Rogers as he drives to his 1950s home he had with Peggy at the end of Endgame, where he held his Captain America uniform before revealing that he's a father as he carries his newborn child.
Short and simple teaser with not much of a reaction to people other than those that are happy to see Steve return. It's honestly my least favorite of the teasers and I do have a longer text essay on a subject this and comics cover in returning characters after retirement or death, but now, this is fine in establishing the risk the story of Doomsday will likely cover.
The next one picks up a little steam from the previous one, as we see Thor, still played by Chris Hemsworth, walking through a forest as he prays to his father, Odin, to grant him strength for an upcoming battle so he can return to Love, Thor's adoptive daughter from the end of Thor: Love and Thunder. This teaser shows us the tone Thor will have for Doomsday, coming back to a more serious character in line of the first two Thor movies and the Avengers films, most notably Infinity War given his haircut is the same as in Thor: Ragnarok and IW.
This one made a lot of people happy in bringing back serious Thor from his less serious and more jokingly behavior from the Waititi films. Now personally, I liked Love and Thunder even though Ragnarok was the better movie, but at least L&T carries a similar idea the storyline God Butcher had in that the Gods are straight-up dicks and that Thor is not like those Gods anymore now with his gained humanity and trust with those on Midgard. Aside from that, the teaser does show the tone Doomsday will have when Thor is seen praying, giving an idea on how strong Doom will be in this movie. Especially how some rumors circulate that Thor might die in this movie, which if you want to hit the audience hard, you might as well do that. Although I have a theory based on the 2016 Secret Wars comic event that the Thor Corp will be a thing in Dooms' Battleworld when we get to the MCU Secret Wars movie, now with multiple people having Thor's lightning including a grown-up Love.
A much better teaser than the first one and gives a lot of seriousness to the film.
Moving to the next and most regarded as the best teaser of the bunch, this starts in an almost destroyed Xavier school with how everything looking worse for wear as Professor Xavier, played by a returning Patrick Stewart, rolls his wheelchair to a chessboard plays a game of chess for one last time with Magneto, played again by Ian McKellan, all the while Xavier talks to Erik about death and how to remember your life when death comes for you. A really somber scene as it gives people the idea that this is going to be the direst of situations for the mutants in this movie. Before smash cutting to hands down, the best shot from these teasers.
Scott Summers aka Cyclops, played once again by James Marsden, doing an un-visored Mega Optic Blast in a battlefield filled with Sentinels. This is the most glorious shot I've seen and made me feel some possible chance of hope because my god the Russos are going to put RESPECT back into Cyclops' name after years of being overshadowed by Wolverine in the X-Men movies.
HOWEVER, and I hate that I'm nitpicking this: Where are the yellow trunks? Where are his trunks? Is this going to be a Man of Steel situation where the suit is accurate, but it doesn't have the trunks so it's just one big blue jumpsuit because of "realism?" The yellow trunks add in more color to the suit to make it eye pleasing. I mean, they already have Scott in his 90s suit, but they couldn't put him in with the yellow trunks? I don't want this to bother me, and it doesn't take away the fact this is still my favorite teaser, but it just... does for some reason. This teaser is still great on how much respect the X-Men are going to get, especially its going to be the last we'll see of the original Fox X-Men before the recasting into the MCU, but COME ON, NO YELLOW TRUNKS?
Teaser #4- Wakanda and The Thing:
The final teaser has us in the middle of the desert with Shuri, the current Black Panther and played again by Letitia Wright, alongside M'Baku, the current king of Wakanda and played again by Winston Duke, and the Dora Milaje to meet someone there. Another shot has Namor, played by Tenoch Huerta Mejía, and the rest of Talokan now on the surface where it also might reveal that the water surrounding Talokan has been mysteriously dried up. All the while, Shuri's inner monologue has her saying how she lost everyone that mattered to her and how she's ready for the afterlife. After that ends, King M'Baku introduces himself to Ben Grimm aka The Thing, played again by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, where Ben just says his street address from his universe and I just think that's charming.
The first teaser that shows universes crossing over with Earth-828 meeting Earth-616 and the most fitting since T'Challa and Wakanda debuted in the books of Lee's and Kirby's original Fantastic Four run. Although I do dread to think about the interaction between Namor and Sue. shivers Overall, a pretty nice trailer and probably my third favorite.
And now, for theory time:
One popular theory for Doomsday is that Doctor Doom, in his plan to get every, if not, most anchor beings (as established in Deadpool & Wolverine) to come together and probably either a. kill them or b. contain them to save the multiverse and create Battleworld for Secret Wars, Doom starts kidnapping kids important to the characters here. We already saw the first kidnapping with Franklin Richards in the post-credit scene of Fantastic Four: First Steps, and with more obvious implications in the first two teasers with Steve's child and Love being possibly kidnapped as well. As for the latter two, Doom could steal Shuri's young nephew T'Challa II (he doesn't have the II to his name, but I added it in for no confusion for me), who we first saw in the first post-credit scene of Wakanda Forever. And for a surprising twist, Doom might kidnap Scott and Jean's son, Nathan Summers, assuming he will grow up to be Cable in the future. It does seem to be a stretch for the Doom kidnapping theory to have Nathan be stolen given how we don't see Jean nor any confirmation that her actress, Famke Jannsen, will be in Doomsday.
As for a theory I have that's more of a plot detail, it could be that during the first and second acts of the movie having the Fantastic Four just going universe to universe trying to find Doom and Franklin, starting from their universe to the Fox X-Men universe (Earth-10008 I believe) where Scott, Nightcrawler, and probably Jean and Logan (and maybe Deadpool, although I don't know how the Russos are gonna write him or even bring him along in the first place) join the FF while Xavier, Erik, and probably Raven are dead in the Sentinel attack set up by Doom, and eventually the groups go to Earth-616 to get help from Shuri, Namor, and the rest of Wakanda and Talokan.
That is a sort of basis for the story to possibly look like for now since I did leave out some important details not shown off yet, like how Sam's Avengers, Bucky and Yelena's New Avengers, and Kamala's Young Avengers groups are going to play into this, or how other characters are rumored to be in Doomsday, like Jean, Logan, DP, and Tobey and Andrew's Spider-Men, despite not having any confirmation of the actors portraying those characters are going to be in said film. Likewise, Loki and the TVA are not shown yet, but they might be a key role in the climax of Doomsday, but how I'm not sure yet. Oh god, I almost forgot about Monica still being in Earth-10008 have I? Maybe she'll join the FF and X-Men group to help get to Earth-616.
Overall, these teasers ranged from alright to great, but I'm still skeptical about Doomsday in the end. Maybe that'll change when the official first trailer comes out during the Super Bowl. Otherwise, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still the MCU movie I'm looking forward to the most in all honesty.
